Visible Learning Meets BTC - Ch. 10 - Learning

"Learning is an active and self-directed process".

BTC aligns with this same way of thinking.

Working in random groups at VWBs helps everyone to be active,

And being allowed to do their own thinking,

These small groups are self-directed...trying any and all methods they can think of.

And when mistakes are made,

Learning moves another step in the right direction.

BTC makes learning

"effective" and "enjoyable".

Finding that flow where the challenge keeps the thinking going is my goal every lesson.

As students connect to their prior knowledge and apply it to new situations,

This can be exciting to see!

I like how the book put it, what do they bring to the task in terms of skill, will and sense of thrill?

As I design learning activities, 

I am constantly thinking about WHERE their skill level is...

...will the task allow all students to enter the problem?

...how will prior learning be a stepping stone in the problem?

I am thinking about WHERE they are headed...

...how can I tap into their intrinsic motivation?

...how can I make this as parallel to real life that I can?

...how can I make this relevant to middle schoolers?

And I am passionate about interjecting fun into the learning process.

...how can I change up the learning activities?

...will the students find as much joy in the learning process as I did?

...what can I include in the lesson to hook them?

Visible Learning Meets BTC - Ch. 9 - Relationships

Relationships are important.

Even in learning.

The stronger the relationship,

The stronger the learning.  

Having high expectations,

for ALL students

is also important.

Believe ALL students can learn,

is essential.

This is one of my deepest philosophies,

wrapped up nicely in one chapter.

At the beginning of each year,

We work on creating our learning environment.

Through this process, 

Relationships are built,

Expectations are shared,

And students, hopefully, start to believe that they too, can learn math!

My promise to my students is I will always be watching and listening to them.

As I gather information from them,

I can better prepare for the next day's lesson,

Or even change midstream if the need should allow.

I am also passionate about math education

which in part, I hope, is passed along to the students.

There is so many aspects in the learning of math

That carries forward into life.

I want my students to see that.

The Checklist:

Take stock of the expectations you have for students.

1) FISH Philosophy! expectations - Focus on Attitude, Interject Fun, Serve Others, and Here and Now

2) VWB expectations - Share the marker, Work together, Try new approaches, Use others' boards when you get stuck, Be kind

3) Mistakes are valuable...they are the only way we learn

4) Pay Attention and Do Your Work

Visible Learning Meets BTC - Ch. 8 - Success Criteria

I have the learning goal posted.

Although it is more of an umbrella of all the learning that will take place.

It's not real specific.

This is something I could add in.  

Today's learning goal.

And then what it will look like if they are successful in achieving that goal.

How to show that though?

What if it's an open-ended problem?

What about a concept like the Pythagorean Theorem?

Solving Equations?

Angles?

To communicate the success criteria for an open-ended problem, I would stress the importance of showing all work on the VWBs and being able to explain their thinking process from start to finish.  It would be more of a verbal "this is what your success will look like" than an actual example.

For more concrete problems like solving equations and the Pythagorean Theorem, I could show a sample problem of what showing all your work looks like, the number of steps, and how to organize the work. 

Basically, involving the learner in all aspects of their learning process is what success criteria is all about.  This makes sense. Why do we keep all the goals to ourselves.  

1) Challenge: With the quiz rubrics, students already have a resource to identify their strengths and weaknesses.  But by also sharing the success criteria, the learning gaps will make more sense to the students, as well as the achievements!

2) Self-Commitment: I already feel like BTC places more of the learning responsibility on the student. By making these success criteria visible to them, it creates a more intrinsic motivation as well.

3) Self-Confidence:  With BTC, I have heard students working at the VWBs exclaim, "I feel so accomplished!" By understanding the success criteria, this should be even more evident as they gain understanding.

4) Expectations of the Learner: Reflecting on their learning is something we continually strive to work into our lessons.  Identifying success criteria should make this reflection an easier process.

5) Conceptual Understanding: Yes. Yes!  YES!!!!  Hopefully, this will aid in fluency as well. 

Visible Learning Meets BTC - Ch. 7 - Dialogue

This chapter had BTC written ALL over it!

From discussions at the VWBS to whole group consolidation discussions,

I was immediately validated with the BTC strategies I've been incorporating into my math instruction.

"Dialogic teaching aims to stimulate and extend student thinking allowing the student and teacher to more precisely diagnose what they know and misunderstand."

Consolidation or whole group discussions...have been a favorite of mine as we bring together the learning at the white boards.  Listening to the students and allowing their thinking to emerge, brings learning to the surface.  The best days are when the students start to lead the learning with their questions, observations, and summaries.

Peer tutoring or collaboration at the VWBs...is also a great tool for allowing math dialogue to take place.  What I love about this format is that any misunderstandings can be addressed for just the group struggling.  To help keep the focus in the random groups at the VWBs, I have devised an anchor chart with suggestions of what to do for the one that "gets it" and the one that is "struggling".

Direct instruction has it's place and it's time and has gotten a bad rap here lately.  To be honest, I rarely use it.  However, I do like the term "deliberate teaching and learning" (DLT) to be used in its place instead.  :)

Visible Learnings Meets BTC - Ch. 6: Feedback

Feedback!

Totally necessary when reflecting on learning.

Both for the student.

And for the teacher.

For a couple years now, on quizzes I will ask about the impact of the learning activities used

To gauge which the students deemed the most helpful. 

I have also found that with VWBs

I can give more individual feedback for what I'm seeing on each board,

Differentiating instruction instead of lumping it all under one umbrella with a whole group discussion.

This chapter had a lot to think about.

And new ways to look at feedback.

After a first read, I feel like I just partially understand it.

Will definitely need a deeper dive.

The main message:

"Teachers cannot answer the question of whether learning and teaching is successful on their own. They need to ask the learners what they think."

Yes.

YES.

YES!

Just seeing the lesson in action and moving along nicely is not enough feedback 

To truly assess the learning activities used.

When using the BTC methods, these are ways to incorporate more feedback back to the teacher.

1) When learning is at the VWBs, student explanations of how they solved the problem(s) is priceless feedback for the teacher to identify strengths, weaknesses, and misconceptions.

2) Entries in Notes-For-My-Future-Forgetful-Self offers a mirror into student understanding and if learning goals were met.

3) Simply asking students their thoughts on a particular learning activity.

4) Exit Tickets

Where Am I Going?  By going through this lesson/unit, what will I be learning?

How am I Going? What are going to be the instructional/learning strategies to help me understand the content?

Where to Next? Where will this content be seen again?  Why am I learning this?

Try to give feedback without praise.

This requires creating a culture where mistakes are valued, thoughts are encouraged, and input is sought out by those struggling.

This feedback gets even more diverse when you think about them in terms of task, process, or self-regulation.  And also, feed"back", feed"up", and feed"forward".  Using the matrices in this chapter, I attempted to think through one lesson in these terms.  

I also LOVED the coordinate system feedback grid (pg. 95) to assess group work at the VWBs for each day.  Place the grid with "Knowledge Gained" on the x-axis and "Group Work" on the y-axis and have students mark where they ended up after the lesson.  

Visible Learning Meets BTC - Ch 5 - I Strive for Challenge and not Merely "Doing Your Best"

Flow.

IYKYK, right?

This is almost verbatim with what is in the BTC book!

Not too hard.

Not too boring.

But juuuuuuust right.

But first...Goals

1) Consider prior knowledge.  

This has been a constant focus it seems here in these last couple years, as I have front-loaded my lesson with prior knowledge material to help cover some of the learning gaps created from virtual/hybrid schooling.  

Drawing the "learning map" so students can see the connections between what they've learned previously and how it will relate to their new learning today.

It's important to know where the lesson is going...and in many cases, I will ramp up the rigor to make it more challenging in the end.  But with consolidation, will always start at the bottom to grab all students that may have fallen in the gap.

2) Describe the observable behaviors the learners should exhibit (what you expect to see on the board, the calculations to strive for in thin-slicing...)

3) Name conditions for monitoring the learners' behavior (time frames to complete a problem, resources available, expected level of collaboration)

4) Specify standards of evaluation (what percent correct when completing CYUs)

5) Personal bests help make the students own the goal.  This was a crazy section to read as I used this exact vocabulary this year when administering the state assessments!  I will continue to use our growth charts for Test Trainer, Fastbridge, and State Assessments.

Flow

"a learner is deeply involved in the task, and in the zone, they can then experience the deepest and most lasting happiness."

This is always my goal for my students.

Nothing feels better than when I am "in the zone".

How to achieve this with BTC???

1) Low floor/High ceiling problems

2) Non-curricular tasks

3) Thin Slicing

4) Taking away homework so the need to "just complete it" is no longer a thing

SOLO

No ideas

One idea

Many ideas

Related ideas

Extended ideas

To be honest, I need more time to digest this particular concept.

But to me, this is the whole idea of concept fluency. 

When students stay in the unistructural or multistructural levels, the downfall happens when solving more complex problems in math where several concepts are needed.

I see this over and over again.

This is again why work on the VWBs with random groups is critical as knowledge can be passed more quickly to other students allowing for the math to become more about relationships and patterns then just stand alone concepts.

So here's where the magic happens...when we can "adjust the level of difficulty just above the learner's current achievement level". 

However, this is easier said than done.

As achievement levels are all over the place.  

What is too challenging for one student, may be boring for another, yet just right for some.  

With VWBs though, groups can push through

While allowing you a "white board window" of their thinking!  

Visible Learning Meets BTC - Ch 4: I am a Change Agent and Believe All Students Can Improve

By the title alone, I knew I was going to love this chapter!  Some of the quotes from this book that really seemed to hit home included...

"Aiming for students to have agency (includes asking for help, seeking to find out what they do not know, and working beyond what they can do now) in their learning is indeed a major aim in learning."

"How is it possible to convince learners to tackle a more difficult problem, fill them with enthusiasm, and inspire them?"

1) One moment where these attributes were all present was when we were working with solving equations.  We had a reached a point where the students were not challenged anymore.  In a tentative voice, I suggested that we could try fractions, but added that I knew they already struggled with fractions, so we might need a refresher course.  The students jumped all over moving forward with the fraction equations and using what they had already learned with a concept they had already identified as being one of their gaps in their learning.  Students were high fiving each other as they solved the problems.  The talk was all about the math, good questions were being asked...and answered by the students!  It was truly a glorious moment.

But how to create that day in and day out?  

Is that even a reasonable expectation?

"When confronting issues in schooling, we need to know how to ask for help, the climate of trust needs to be high to allow for the help to be asked and heard, you need to be put in situations where you are challenged to make mistakes, and there must be help there to resolve the dilemma.  This create a yes we can mindset to learning in a situation when we most rapidly need to learn and ask for help to learn."

This statement TOTALLY reminded me of when I decided to read the book and implement the BTC strategies.  Students were not thinking at the level I was happy with.  It felt like they were relying more and more on my questions back to them.  I thought I was helping them think more, but in reality my questions were guiding them far to much so they didn't have to think as hard.  At my school, my principal is very trusting in allowing us to take risks in the classroom.  And implementing BTC was a huge risk as I was changing a lot.  After discussing my view on the lack of thinking and what I wanted to try, he was on board immediately.  Taking a risk of implementing new strategies and revamping how your classroom operates, also includes lots of mistakes.  And we made mistakes.  But I ultimately believe it was in those mistakes that the strategies grew stronger.  

"Good classroom management is a scene-setter for trust to be built, for fairness to be dominant, and for learning to then occur."

This is probably the hardest part of BTC is creating the classroom culture where the class manages themselves.  At least it was this year, my second year of implementation.  I don't know if it was because I had become lax in the strategies, thinking I knew how to incorporate them after one of of implementation.  Or if it was a different group of students?  But, for whatever reason, this year had me focusing on the impact of classroom management and how it relates to learning in the classroom.

1) Focus and presence - I make a promise to my students at the beginning of the year and then remind them of it often that I am watching and listening to them at all times to best help them learn.  It's more than just the words...I back it up almost daily with what I witnessed earlier in the class or the previous day, and how we are going to tackle learning from that point forward.  In terms of classroom behavior, there are many times where I ignore the little disturbances and simply move myself closer to the misbehavior, give the student a look to convey that I know what they are doing, and then proceed with the lesson since that's the more important than their behavior.  

2) Smoothness and pace - When planning the lesson, I plan for the transitions as well.  Idle time never seems to serve the lesson well and always requires refocus which is harder to do the second time.

3) Group focus - With BTC, there are lots of small group discussions which are great as they concern just the misunderstandings at that particular board.  However, if I start to see the same misunderstanding board after board, we then pull together the whole group.  This year, we may implement the expectation that when whole group discussions/consolidations are happening, that students pull out their notebooks in case there is something they will need to jot down for future use.  

Advance Organizers - we have done something like this with the KWL chart or versions of it.  This helps students see how their prior knowledge lends itself to the new learning.

"Learning requires motivation and it is difficult to initiate learning processes without motivation."

Yes.

Absolutely.

Amen!

This has been my focus FOR YEARS...even prior to implementing BTC and knowing that the first five minutes are critical for grabbing the students attention.  My quest all these years has been to create a collection of strategies for my toolbox to add variety and intrigue to my lessons.  The following chart is based on Figure 4.5 ARCS model on page 51.  I added my own strategies to the descriptions in the chart.  These are not all the strategies, but the ones that immediately came to mind.  What was fun, was by the end of the chapter, the author suggests to do just this very thing!  One step ahead of ya!  Ha!  :)

"I am a change agent and believe all students can improve" requires both a constant search for evident and close cooperation with colleagues.

The "close cooperation with colleagues" is on area I need to work on.  I can get so focused on the analyzing and reflecting in my four walls that I forget about the importance of collaboration.  I wonder if this is also due to the fact that I am the only one implementing BTC in our district???